This Reader

This Reader explores the subject of the human mind, and its limitations to control and manipulate physical and future events. The following series of art references, texts, projects, films and websites shape the essential question, what is human? Each reference addresses issues and forms examples and arguments which suggest that the human mind has a direct effect upon external factors, in both individual and mass scale. The gathered material proposes a greater self power over physical circumstances, and questions the individual and mass collected power, to control and change reality. This knowledge could then be asserted to address larger issues which may confront our current reality. The choice of material is in no chronological order, but explores varied approaches and methodologies all with similar concepts. The varied size and form of the material allows the information to be considered in the form the viewer finds most effective, it also allows for the choice of both brief viewing and more careful consideration. All the references suggest how the human mind holds a greater significant influence than we normally percieve, through intention, imagery, spiritual connections, altered states of conciousness and simple observation.

Tuesday, 5 April 2011

Spontaneous Remission

The Institute of Noetic Sciences publishedSpontaneous Remission. TheRemission Projectis a database of medically reported cases of spontaneous remission in the world, with more than 3,500 references from more than 800 journals in 20 different languages. Spontaneous remission is defined as “the disappearance, complete or incomplete, of a disease or cancer without medical treatment or treatment that is considered inadequate to produce the resulting disappearance of disease symptoms or tumor." The data suggests that the cases were not as rare as first perceived and on the increase. It also suggests that psychosocial consideration may influence the cases survival rate and considerable evidence showed the attributions to positive mood and ‘fighting spirit’.

Below is section of the introduction and link to the full downloadable document.

The rare but spectacular phenomenon of spontaneous remission of cancer persists in the annals of medicine, totally inexplicable but real, a hypothetical straw to clutch in the search for cure. From time to time patients turn up with far advanced cancer, beyond the possibility of cure. They undergo exploratory surgery, the surgeon observes metastases throughout the peritoneal cavity and liver, and the patient is sent home to die, only to turn up again 10 years later free of disease and in good health. There are now several hundred such cases in world scientific literature, and no one doubts the validity of the observations. But no one has the ghost of an idea how it happens. Some have suggested the sudden mobilization of immunological defense, others propose that an intervening infection by bacteria or viruses has done something to destroy the cancer cells, but no one knows. It is a fascinating mystery, but at the same time a solid basis for hope in the future: If several hundred patients have succeeded in doing this sort of thing, eliminating vast numbers of malignant cells on their own, the possibility that medicine can learn to accomplish the same thing at will is surely within the reach of imagining.

A new area of biology is emerging: the study of spontaneous remissions from normally fatal illnesses. Of all the astonishing properties of living systems the two most amazing are their ability to reproduce themselves and the ability to repair themselves in a wide variety of ways. As Lewis Thomas suggests, scientists studying spontaneous remission could uncover the mysteries of how the human body can cure itself, turning those mysteries into mechanisms of healing “at will.”